Page 256 - The Golden Age of Chinese Archaeology: Celebrated Discoveries from the People’s Republic of China

carved for another purpose, and date from the
3
tenth or ninth century, others even earlier — back
to the Shang period. It is likely that the Zhou (and
their vassals in the minor states) acquired such
pieces when they conquered the Shang in the mid-
eleventh century; the looting of the royal tombs
may have occurred at that time or at a later date.
The more difficult question is why these jades
came to be buried in the eighth century and not
earlier. Perhaps in a time of political and economic
uncertainty, when the Zhou were destabilized by
attacks from border peoples, it seemed more pru-
dent to bury jades for the afterlife than to risk their
immediate loss; or perhaps equipping the bodies of
rulers, their consorts, and their nobles with jades
reflected a change in how the afterlife was con-
ceived among the Zhou and their Jin dependents.
A direct relation between Zhou burial practices and
the Han's elaborate shrouds, pectorals, and face
coverings for their dead (see cats. 139-146) is im-
plausible, however, for Han burial appurtenances
were created in a culture separate in both time and
place from the Jin state of the Zhou period. JR

1 Excavated in 1994 (M 63:41); reported: Shanxi 1994}}.
2 For a discussion of the sources of interlace on Western
Zhou bronzes, see Rawson 1990, part 1:113-123. Interlace
appears on the lids of hu from Tomb M 8 at Tianma-Qucun
(Beijing 1994, 20, fig. 26).
3 See Rawson 1995, 22 - 28.

255 I ROYAL TOMB S OF THE JIN STATE, B E I Z H A O